East African Telecentre Network Leaders' Exchange Pragram
From UgaBYTES Collaboration wikipedia
East African Telecentre Network Leaders' Exchange Pragram
As the need for a clear common vision grows in telecentre eco-system; network leaders in East African countries met on 18th to 22nd Febraury at UgaBYTES [1] - Kampala to discuss similar issues at regional level. The gathering was the first of its kind to focus specifically on regional network program harmonization. The staff exchange program is part of the telecentre.org program that was recommended in the telecentre.org [2] telecentre global survey of 2005. The meeting brought National Network representatives from Kenya's KenTel [3], Tanzania's Tanzania Telecentre Network, Burundi's Burundi Community Telecentre Network and Rwanda's Rwanda Telecentre Network to openly share, learn and re-think the path of the region's telecentre eco-system.
This kind of learning has also been advocated for by networks UgaBYTES [4] has helped to form. The concept has also been discussed at all the four East Africa Telecentre Leaders Forums - EATLF before its implementation. According to the concept justification the program will help region build networks beyond leadership, enthusiasm and motivated spirits. Focusing at collaborative success and value innovations for strengthening the community. Earlier thought in the concept focused at;
1. mainstreaming management and operation
2. strategic plans and budgeting
3. start up high value activities
4. Envision “small investment; big impact” strategy.
Read more of the story; [5]
Key Program Outline
The 5 day program focused at strategically discussing National Network legislation and collaborative operation, establishment of a strong regional online telecentre eco-system, strategizing for community engagement, decentralizing and strengthening mailing lists and websites and developing internal revenue generation business ideas. Other issues that were discussed include a regional; telecentre academy, staff exchange program management and partnership issues with the region. Read detailed program.
Participants articulated their expectations at both national networks and the broader region that mappped out the layout of the discussions. Iterative reviews between the program, along the way outcomes and earlier participant expectations were frequently done to ensure that the program and participants are kept focused. But the telecentre practitioners and network partners were observing the process closely and with interest; before, during and after the program.
Program Participants
The National telecentre staff exchange program of 18th to 22nd, had 4 hosted participants; from Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda who joined the UgaBYTES eleven man team to chat the future of the region's telecentre movement. The comprehensive team included.
Network Visitors
1. Damas Ogwe - Kenya Network of Telecentres
2. Felician Ncheye - Tanzania Telecentre Network
3. Falcon Godwin Ndirima - Rwanda Telecentre Network
4. Jean Paul Nkurunziza Burundi; Emerging Network
UgaBYTES Participants
4. Sulah Ndaula - Executive Director
5. Ahmed Ndaula - Program officer - Technology management
6. Francis Mwathi - Ass. Program officer - Assistant Technology management
7. Esther Nasikye - Program officer - Knowledge Management / Research and Development
8. Sarah Nalwoga Mpagi - Program officer - Knowledge Management / Research and Development
9. Mathias Mulumba Nazyo - Ass. Program officer - Social Enterprise
10. Juliet Naula Irene - Ass. Program officer - Social Enterprise
11. Muhammad Kattoto - Ass. Program officer - Social Enterprise
UgaBYTES Logistic Team
12. Pamela Ogwal - Accounts Officer - Finanince and Administration
13. Lwanga Kulsum - Program officer - Knowledge Management / Research and Development
8. Mahmood Ddamulira - Ass.Program officer - Technology Management
Key National Network Recommendations and Resolutions
Focus
The item of the agenda oriented the discussions toward an understanding of the current status of the national networks in the region. Updates from Kenya Network of Telecentres - KenTel, Tanzania Telecentre Network - TTN, Rwanda Telecentre Network - RTN and Burundi community Telecentre Network - BCTN were presented and discussed. UgaBYTES also presented its historical growth trends and current status in order to allow participants to understand and learn from the earlier challenges of the now seen as an African model telecentre support network.
Issues
Several issues were raised; among which were the services that networks can offer within the East African regional eco-system, the formatization of the networks and their financial system and the importance of UgaBYTES playing a regional coordinational function. Most of the emerging issues were also refered as they integrated into the program issues to be discussed in proceeding days.
Resolutions
During this session, participants reached several points of agreement about national network registration, recommending some specific courses of action for each national network and potentials services for collaboration.
Building a Strong Regional Online Eco-system
East Africa network leaders resolved to build a strong online telecentre community through improving the online knowledge sharing platforms in the region. During the second part of the discussions on the first day of the network leaders staff exchange at UgaBYTES, the network leaders agreed to have national mailing lists alongside the UgaBYTES mailing list which is so far looked at as a global mailing list. The national mailing lists will help to cover issues of language and will facilitate discussion of challenges at a national level. The network leaders also agreed to have websites for their networks and improve the look and feel of those already existing by making them user friendly, interactive and dynamic. The RTN and Kentel websites will be improved to allow users submit content through blogs. The Tanzania Telecentre Network and the Burundi Community Telecentre Network don't have websites yet thus will be developed from scratch.
Resolutions
It was resolved that;
1. UgaBYTES leads the website development process over the next three months.
2. There is continuous updating of the websites.
3. Network leaders committed to having two persons in charge of each website.
4. The two people be charged with the responsibility of ensuring content flows across websites including telecentre.org site, sensitization of the community on website usage and publicizing the websites.
5. The team of ten (at regional level) meet every 3rd of the month to discuss challenges and collaborate on content management issues on the websites.
5. UgaBYTES facilitates the monthly meetings.
6. linkages with international websites, the be created by the network leaders especially with the telecentre.org site and resources.
7. Some of the linkage be done through; RSS feeds, having a summary of the best stories on the websites posted to the mailing lists and publicising the best content on the websites through the Telecentre Times and other platforms.
E Community engagement plan
The national network reviewed and improved a community engagement plan that was also adapted as the working guidline for strengthening the region's telecentre eco-system. The three thematic based plan clearly states what needs to be done, the target audience, delivery strategy, key outcomes, timeline and the consumeable resources to deliver the plan. It underscores community awareness and sensitization, research and documentation, and dissemination and sharing as key components to stimulate as well as energizing the eco-system. The plan also highlights the incentive mechanisms for active practitioners. Once implementation states, the engagement plan will be a major cornerstone for telecentre research and knowledge management and sharing.
The BYTES for Development Award
The incentive mechanism focus largely on the annaul award that will be going to the best; research, blogger, trainer and the outstanding story. The award is name the BYTES for Development Award. The winners under best blogger, best researcher and tariner will recieve;
1. A laptops for each of the winners save for the outstanding story.
2. A plaque that has logos of all networks and institutions involved
3. A package of the most recent telecentre publications.
4. The jury will look into the possibility of providing wireless quipment along with a laptop in future
5. Special mention for a year during EATLF and global events organized by partners and in al the telecentre publication
For details about the resolutions on the Award, please visit . The award recognizes stars of the telecentre community in the areas of research, knowledge sharing and sustainability in the East and Central African region.
Key Recommendations and Resolutions of Social Enterprise Discussions
Background:
The history of telecentres is seen to depend on donors and governments for financial survival. But this is a non growing support. It has declined over the previous 7 years. And over the last 4 years, funding has changed to support networks and knowledge hubs that promise to ensure a 360 degree survival to telecentres. Mapping donor support in this sector though and elsewhere, networks will soon run out of funding, if they can not do what they say they can do.
The above notion as timely blended with the effort of UgaBYTES and the staff exchange program called for re-thinking telecentre survival and even foster implementation strategies of these thoughts at East and central African regional level. The social enterprise team – SET at UgaBYTES closely lead the discussions. It was guided by the common vision of achieving 60% financial sustainability at network, and telecentre level by year 2009, as committed by the UgaBYTES team during 2008 organization review.
During these discussions, national network leaders, brainstorm potential business concepts for collaborative engagement in future. Each network leader gave the status of the network as far as social enterprise is concerned. This included what activities the network is/can undertake now or in future to ensure sustainability.
Ideas that cropped up
There was general agreement by members on the idea of improving the current/traditional business concepts There is need to keep in mind the economic issues that are intended to bring about self sustainability. Integrate traditional and current business plans to come up with concretized ventures.
Resolutions
It was resolved that;
1. A clear and understandable financial remittance system should be established together with accountability terms.
2. Adapt the banking system for settlement and running of transactions.
3. Start up grants should be sourced especially for viable business ventures.
4. Qualified personnel be solicited to manage the system.
5. Seek for expertise from franchise model for finalization of the remittance system and the business concepts.
6. Articilate properly the motive of the social enterprising
7. The UgaBYTES social enterprise team supports regional effort.
8. UgaBYTES in collaboration with national network seek for volunteers in area of business to support national efforts.
It was noted that the interest of the social enterprise is to make money for sustainability purposes by ploughing back profits into various business ventures. The most immediate reason may seem to be profit making, however it is further than that for example expanding and providing ICTs at a larger base than the current operations. And this should be emphasized.
Follow up mechanisms of the buisness venture
1. It is necessary to have a follow up mechanisms between UgaBYTES and regional network.
2. There is need for networks to cooperate with UgaBYTES on technical aspects and on projects that have certain similarities.
3. Frequent communication on progress of projects regionally therefore need to exchange email addresses of network leaders and social enterprise team.
4. The social enterprise team also meet on 3rd of every month along with the content facilitators.
5. If possible develop the portal project in multiple languages for local people in the region to understand.
Note; Network managers are optimistic about the online portal project on condition that it is published in there respective languages.
Resolutions to implement the social enterprises in the region
1. Mid March: There is need to build skilled teams to start work on the social enterprise team at UgaBYTES. There should be contact persons at all networks, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi who will work closely with teh UgaBYTES SET team.
2. Documentation process: A private wiki has been put in place for networks social enterprise teams to use as a centralized knowledge exchange area.
3. There will be face to face and online meetings for the social enterprise teams in the region. The online meetings will take place on the same platform and time as the content facilitators' meeting.
4. Use of volunteers to work on the social enterprise. After articulating the required skills, networks will contribute towards accommodation and meals of volunteers, from their respective countries. Use of foreign volunteers was encouraged as they are knowledgeable and are well facilitated. But both local and international volunteers will be used.
6. Tap from skills of people who have worked or work in franchise business, may not be academia.
7. The social enterprise team and content facilitators will work closely to ensure effective documentation.
9. Deadline for development of business concepts onto the wiki from all networks is 30th April '08; 2 months from resolution date, to give time for the social enterprise team to evaluate the concepts.
Key Recommendations, and Resolution of the Regional Telecentre Academy
During discussions on the telecentre academy, network leaders dreamt and visioned the academy they want for the East African region. They also talked about what needs to be done before implementation of the academy, the role of UgaBYTES at regional level and that of the national telecentre networks, how certification will be done, who else needs to be involed for the academy to happen by in three four months time.
The network leaders agreed that the telecentre academy is both a capacity building programme and a sustainability programme since free services are not fully appreciated by the community, telecentre network members concurred that the services should carry a cost. They agreed to solicit for and provide scholarships for people who can not pay the minimal fee but are crucial in the academy equation.
Activity Timeline
As a follow up strategy for the resolutions, it was agreed that;
1. A wiki be developed to capture the telecentre academy emerging issues.
2. UgaBYTES and telecentre.org academy team provide a training needs assessment guideline for the region by March 31st.
3. National networks produce an academy contact person by March 31st who will join the needs assessment team.
4. Training needs assessment for the region be completed by the end of April with academy recommendations.
4. The Pete Cranston and Shaddy Basheermad telecenrte.org be followed up
5. By end of May the structure of the academy be in place.
6. By end of May training and examination centres be gazette.
7. Between May and June: the curriculum will be developed by the regional team together with the UgaBYTES and telecentre.org support resource persons.
8. The academy be Launched on 1st July with at least one module as informed by the training needs assessment recommendations.
Key Recommendations and Resolutions for Network and Telecentre Staff Exchange
Participants underscored the need to have staff exchange both at National and regional level. The program was resolved to target telecentre owners, telecentre staff and network leaders. It was recommended that the regional network leaders exchnage be done on an annual basis to review progress while that of telecentres was seen as a continuos program that builds on emerging needs.
Selection procedures of Telecentre Owners and staff
National network telecentres will use the criteria below to select and conduct the telecentre staff exchange program in the region.
1. Join weak telecentres with strong practitioners after evaluations
2. Join weak managers to strong managers after evaluations
3. The ability of the exchangee to speke and understand the language used at the host telecentre.
4. The ability and interest of the of the exchange to document and share the information or share photographies and documentaries
5. Whether the exchangee's position at the centre or network is Strategic enough to influence decisions and change on returning.
6. Whether the exchangee has infered power through recommendations by those holding influential positions.
7. Members telecentre to a telecentre network get first priority.
8. Ability of the exchangee and host to work within minimal costs as stipulated in the budget
9. Host institutions should have the willingness to support the staff on exchangee.
10. Volunteers may not be considered because they non permanent staff.
Coordination – how or by who
Coordination of the regional exchange program will done by UgaBYTES in collaboration with national networks. National networks choose who to participate in the staff exchange, what are the potential placement telecentre, what the exchanges want to gain and UgaBYTES aggregate the information to coordinate the process of match making of the exchanges with the right placement. However, the coordination of national exchange programs will done purely by the national networks leadership, which will also responsible for blogging and adding the information on the staff exchange wiki.
Major areas to consider
Kickstarting the focus of the program, network leaders hightlighted the issues below as benchmark to the effort of collecting the issues on which the exchange program will be based; Day to day management; Community integration; Social enterprise at telecentre level; Marketing; Key skills for the success of the telecentres; Technical management; Content generation and documentation; Finance and management; New technologies; Business plan development; and Radio programming.
Report back procedures
The team resolved to use a combination of report back tools. It adapted the recommendations provide for in the telecentre.org network support services from telecentre.org
Peer to peer support before, during and after the program
Peer to peer support should be a continuous process. There needs to be a centralized return point for all people participating in the staff exchange at either national or regional level to share experiences which feed into the staff exchange beneficiaries accessement. The feedback from participants will feed into the success of the program. Network leaders noted that it is important to have the conference call or interact online before the program so the beneficiaries get a picture of where they are going and the expectations from them.
Promotion before and after the staff exchnage – as networks
This wiki is dedicated to staff exchange and it will be updated as the program occurs promotion will also be done on mailing lists and Websites
Obligation contract
The exchangee obligation contract will include; Objectives of the program; Expectations from the network, host and exchange staff and parent telecentre of the exchange; Financial support implications; Documentation and sharing as part of the expectations; Expectations after the program eg implementation of information learnt.
Key Recommendations and Resolutions of Regional Partnership
Network leaders discussed and mainstreamed the national networks and UgaBYTES within the regional eco-system. The purpose of the discussion was to harmonize the telecentres movement in the regional while at the same time shape out the future of the success. The roles of Role of National Networks and UgaBYTES have been highlighted below as resolved by the leaders;
Role of National networks
1. The major role of networks is to encourage community engagement in ICT
2. Where numbers count, lobby and advocacy for telecentre issues of concern
3. Collaborative relations management between national telecentre eco-systen and region or global movement
4. Collaborative relations management between telecentres and support or development organizations
5. Supervising telecentre activities and challenges
6. To implement UgaBYTES initiated programs that target regional impact.
7. Encourage national telecentre forums and gatherings.
8. Out source services, suppliers and customers to the national telecentre eco-sytem using block bargaining.
UgaBYTES Regional Roles
1. Lobby and advocacy for regional telecentre and work funding and network strengthening.
2. Promote, solicit and place network volunteers that can support regional eco-system success.
3. Nurture and promote innovative knowledge sharing in the region.
4. Promote and strengthen capacity strategic regional telecentre capacity building programs.
5. Primary linkage between telecentre development partners especially telecentre.org for the region
6. Play a supervisory and support role over national networks programs.
7. The technical arm of National Networks and telecentre networking in the region.
8. Innovate self sustainability and value addition opportunities.
9. Provide lean staff to support national networks e.g. the social enterprise team.
6. Coordinate, initiate and lobby for collaborative regional development projects.
7. Encourage regional telecentre forums and gatherings.
8. Out source services, suppliers and customers to the regional telecentre eco-sytem using block bargaining.
Recap and evaluation
The network leaders provided an insight into the anticipated challenges from the collaborative meetings, their opinion of the staff exchange program and what they liked and disliked from the intensive five day meeting. Senior program officers from telecentre.org Meddie Mayanja and Shaddy Basheermad teleconferenced with the network leaders and provided feedback on the discussions especially on the telecentre academy and the status of networks in the region.
Stories and blogs from the network leaders staff exchange participants
Network leaders took time off to share with the wider telecenrte community the events and resoulutions from the staff exchange through the websites and mailing lists. See the links to some of the stories and pictures
Program Follow Up
The meeting was attended by Cleopa, Damas, Felician, Esther, Sulah and later Nkurunziza. The issues that were discusioned resolved on;
- 1. Registration updates for KenTel for next month, while TTN will do so in 2 days.
- 2. KenTel and other national networks prepare the layout they want on their website by 15th.
- 3. Look at community engagement plan together with the Award for content capturing, sharing and community engagement.
- 4. let us thnk about best researcher category in the award.
- 5 Kentel workshop may held after registration... with support.
- 6. The national jury coordinators should be communicated by mid month March.
Its was noted that the BYTES for Development Award - B4DA recieved applause in Kenyan communities.
